eTextile designer will love the Frogr, a creation of Angella Mackey and David McCallum. The Frogr is an adapter – called shield in Arduino terminology – give a higher degree of flexibility when creating multiple designs which require the LilyPad.

The LilyPad has to be sewn onto the textile circuit to make good contact. Creating a range of designs, each requiring the LilyPad means you need to buy for each one a LilyPad which can quickly turn out as expensive creativity.

With the Frogr shield you can quickly interchange the LilyPad to other designs as it extends the LilyPad contacts to snap buttons. The counterpart of the snap buttons are at the end of the the conductive trace in you garment design, just waiting to be connected to the LilyPad/Frogr combo.

A nice design twist of the Frogr is the battery pouch below the LilyPad where you can slip in two 3V coin cell batteries – neat.

The Frogr can also become very handy when the same garment design could have different applications requiring different versions of software on the LilyPad. Just prepare two Frogr ready LiliPad modules with different software loaded and swap them out in no time during demonstration of the flexibility of your designs.

Check out the making-off the Frogr via Angella’s Flickr photo stream. The temple for the Frogr shield and stencil for the garment can be found on the Frogr project site.

A simple yet brilliant idea, something many eTextile creators have been waiting for to be invented.

[via: Fashioning Technology]

From a clothing designer point of view, the focus is on style and aesthetics. From an electronic engineer point of view, the power efficient circuit design is one of the keys between being a master or mediocre in this profession.

Designing electrical function with high power efficiency in mind minimizes the need of power, allowing to use smaller batteries or to have longer working time for the electronic.

The highly informative Computational Textiles as Materials for Creativity Weblog  featured last Sunday the power topic for the LilyPad. It gives a rule of thump guide on how to estimate the battery size when using the LilyPad board in eTextile projects.

It’s a very first average estimate and the actual power requirements will depend  on how much/long the LilyPad will be running during the use of the application you design. If the LilyPad has to be active, is running a program all the time, the power consumption will be higher.

To make a more accurate power consumption calculation I strongly suggest to read the ‘important note about the power supply’ on Leah Buechley‘s ‘Turn signal biking jacket‘ DIY instructions.

Leah explains very nicely how the selection of conductive yarn and the distance between the LilyPad and the battery in your eTextile project can influence the power needs.

On a related note: one of our CONNECTION members is looking for a battery for a wearable electronic project. Maybe you can check out his requirements and have some tips?

During my travel to Austria, Vienna, I discovered a Viennese inspired wearable electronic project from NYC based Ambreen Hussain a Masters graduate in Fine Arts at Parsons, The New School for Design.

Her project the ‘Spin on the Waltz‘ or ‘Spin‘ for short, creates a new and interactive sound environment for Viennese waltz dancers through two wearable garments with embedded technologies that trigger an electronically generated melody.

These two wearable outfits are constructed for professional-level male and female Viennese waltzers and act as new media audio instruments that allow the dance and the two bodies to control music in an interactive manner, instead of the music controlling the dance in its static form.

Three sensors are placed on both the male and the female garment. Each of these five encounters triggers a sensor that controls the output of a synthesized melody.

In a sense, their bodies are reflecting the movements of the harmonic waveforms that produce the sound outputs, and vice versa.

Spin aims to increase an awareness of the exchanges made between the male and female with one another by stripping the context of the waltz composition and incorporating interactive melodies, which then create new environments and realizations.

‘Spin’ is constructed through hard and software technologies such as Max/MSP, soft circuitry, and a set of LilyPad Arduino.

A unique concept that combines the old tradition of ballroom dance with cutting edge technology, adding a new dimension to ‘Viennese waltzing’.

More photos from the ‘making off’ on Ambreen’s Flickr photo stream.

Getting e-textile materials is still not a s easy as conventional crafting materials like for example thread.

Syuzi Pakhchyan, an expert in smart crafting, has posted on her blog Fashioning Technology a great overview of commercially available, electrically conductive threads together with information on the positive and negative aspects for each of them.

Conductive threads are the foundation of almost any e-textile project and finding the best thread for different projects is for e-textile crafting as important as for traditional sewing.

Jump over the Syuzi’s Conductive Thread Overview and check out what works best for you and where to get it.

After having selected the best e-textile thread, the e-textile crafter needs the intelligent part for creating smart garments.

The first choice here is the LilyPad Arduino developed by Leah Buechley and sold by Sparfun. The LilyPad motherboard offers a wide range of build-in functions but for really creative crafter there is always the need for more. Sparkfun has added to the LilyPad main board a very smart designed LilyPad Protoboard to provide an easy way to design and expand the functionality of the ‘mother ship’.

Coming in two sizes that fit the round form factor of the main board and the sensor boards, the Protoboards are designed to have connection between every hole for component placement which eliminates the need of additional wires to be soldered. To create your final layout you just break (with a knife for example) all the connections not needed and you are ready to go with a PCB layout matching the LilyPad wearable electronic crafting system.

Check out the new LilyPad Protoboard by Sparkfun and start drafting your next, great and very smart textile projects.

Sparkfun has bundled two versions of the famous and fabulous Wearable Electronic DIY system around Leah Buechley’s LilyPad Arduino e-textile system for the Do-It-Yourself enthusiasts.

You can check out the two LilyPad kits first hand during the Maker Fair which takes center-stage this weekend in Austin.

If you can it make to Austin you can (pre) order the E-Sewing or Pro Kit.

A few hours before writing this post I checked SparkFun’s online store and both kits have been available but at the moment of writing they are out of stock. It seems the LilyPads selling out at this moment like hot cakes. Luckily I ordered my share of LilyPads last week already.

The LilyPad E-Sewing kit is targeted towards beginners making the first step into wearable electronic. The kit contains LilyPad LEDs, buttons, coin-cell batteries and holder and conductive thread. All you need is a needle and you are ready to add some sparkle to your outfit.

Once the e-Sewing kit is fully explored you might then move on to the LilyPad Pro Kit which contains the LilyPad Mainboard, power supply, USB link and cable.

Tutorials and inspiration are free to collect on Leah’s site. I am just starting to explore the potential of the LilyPad system but I can already say: fantastic simple to use and a lot of fun to play around with.